Meeting of MindsIndex | HomePage | GameLogs | HoldfastGameLogs | Meeting of Minds After taking his leave from Merivel, Rhys returned to the Hold to find his uncle. He started in Lord Hardy's rooms. Sewell was back at his station in Lord Hardy's room. The Lord was asleep, and Rhys found his uncle seated by the fire, a venerable volume open on a portable reading desk set over his lap, and a pair of the eye-lenses he had devised perched on the end of his nose. He looked up at Rhys with a smile of welcome, not untouched by concern. Rhys grinned back. He glanced at Lord Hardy, noted he was asleep and not likely to need either his or his uncle's services for awhile, then crossed the room to pull up a chair next to Sewell. "It became a somewhat interesting night after we talked," Rhys said placidly, understating. Old Bessica (who was well nigh deaf) was busy cleaning at the far end of the room around the Lord's bed; Maester Sewell had an eccentric belief that sick people should lie in clean linens and in clean places. Sewell insrted a bookmark and carefully closed the book. "Indeed?" he said. "Might you share it with me?" Rhys related the events surrounding the murder of the Bolton man, starting with Ser Anders calling him from the Tower to help in the investigation, continuing through his examination of the dead man at the vigil, and ending with his speculative talk with Merivel. He also told Sewell of his encounter with Herys at the vigil, Ser Godfrey's lie, and Rhys's acceptance of it. Of Syndra and his exploits with her later, Rhys said nothing. "The trial will be this morning, Ser Anders said," Rhys finished. Sewell nodded. "And doubtless they'll want you to give evidence," he said. "But aside from what you've seen, what do your feelings tell you about all this?" Rhys paused, gazing at Sewell. Feelings... Why didn't his uncle say thoughts, or refer to logic? Such an open-ended question, phrased as it was, and all the emotions he'd so carefully pushed down to be examined later welled to the surface: anger at Herys, despair over the news of the betrothal, confusion where Syndra was concerned--was he feeling more than a brotherly fondness for her? He couldn't, it wasn't allowed, he was reminded by the links around his neck--hope after learning what Syndra had discovered about the sellsword... And none of it at all about the dead man, which is where his thoughts and feelings should be focused. The stream of emotions passed plainly across Rhys's face, like ripples on water. He looked away to the far wall, silent for the space of a few heartbeats while he dammed the flow once again and regained control. "I...I think that the trial will bring out more to the story than we have right now," he replied lamely. "That is the purpose of a trial," agreed Sewell. Rhys gave him a wan smile and looked toward the fire. He was silent for a long moment, and Rhys was aware that his uncle looked at him more than once. Finally, he spoke. "Rhys, to be a Maester ... it is not without trials." From the tone of his voice, he no longer seemed to be referring to judicial trials. Rhys drew in a long breath and let it out. "Why separate ourselves so? To what purpose? All we're doing in ensuring that the brightest minds in Westeros don't produce children to pass those traits onto. It makes absolutely no sense." "And should the Maesters be distracted from their chosen calling by the burden of wife and children?" countered Sewell. "Would our studies progress so far if we had responsibilities to others outside our Order - responsibilities that should be put ahead of anything else? Rhys, a Maester need not be dead inside. He need not be beyond the bonds of human affection. But those bonds must not become a burden." Rhys frowned, conflicted. He saw the logic in his uncle's argument, the beauty and pureness of the higher calling, and he longed to achieve it. But he despaired at the thought of being alone for the next forty or so years, always putting others' needs ahead of his own. He healed those around him, but who healed the Maester? "I thought I'd resolved this already," Rhys confided, looking again at the fire. "Two nights before I took my vows, the other acolytes arranged for me to spend the evening with a member of the fairer sex." He shrugged and smiled at Sewell. "It's a common practice at the Citadel. Did they do that when you were there? Anyway, it was expected, I did it, and I felt...nothing. I mean, I did it," Rhys explained hastily, lest his uncle think he couldn't perform, "but that was it. It was intense, the act, but I also thought at the time it was something I could give up for a higher calling, a greater purpose." Sewell nodded. "And, of course, some Maesters are blind enough to assume that the basic animal pleasure of the act is all that passes between a man and a woman. They never learn - except, of course, from books - that the physical represents a small, if not neglibible part of the whole. But not neglible. Recollect, if you will, the feel of your harlot's cheek when you caressed it with your fingers." A pause ... a log suddenly sputtered in the hearth, but Sewell made no move. "Now," he said at last. "Imagine if that cheek were Syndra's." Rhys flushed at the mention of her name. It was one thing to discuss this issue as a hypothetical situation, but his uncle had just brought it into sharp reality. He sighed ruefully and passed a hand over his face. "I thought...in my naivete...the foundation of the relationship between a man and a woman was the act. And the act I could live without. But...it seems to me...that instead the act is an expression of the love already there in the relationship, not the foundation on which it's built?" "Sometimes," said Sewell. "And sometimes not. And other times yet again, most commonly, the foundation is political advantage, or money or some other gain for an individual or a family or a House - whether it's the King marrying Cersei Lannister to gain the support of her father and his golden dragons, or whether it's an ambitious journeyman marrying his Master's young widow to take over his tools in more than one sense. "To be a Maester requires sacrifice, Rhys. And the greatest Maesters are those who understand what they are sacrificing, not those who can turn their backs on it all without a second thought." "How can we understand something we've never experienced?" "Who is to say that we have never experienced it, that we will never experience it?" countered Sewell. "Taking vows does not end temptation, Rhys. You can take your vows and mean them with all your heart ... and then fall so deeply in love you feel as though your beating heart has been torn from your chest." "That does not sound pleasant," Rhys commented dryly, looking askance at his uncle. He sat back. "If only feelings weren't so elusive, so ethereal. I would like to take my emotions and somehow stick them in a box so I could examine them, measure them, poke at them... Understand them without...being hurt by them." Sewell gave a little laugh. "Ah, Rhys, if you were to make that your chosen field of study, and to discover the method to seal those feelings away, you would earn the gratitude of all Westeros." But then he grew grave again. "But it is our feelings that make us what we are, Rhys. Where would you and I be without our sense of curiosity about the world, seen and unseen, that lies around us? Where would men like Godfrey and Godwyn be without their sense of honour? Where would Syndra be without her loving heart?" "Yes, and where would Ser Herys be without his cruelty and viciousness?" Rhys countered wryly. "Ah," said Sewell. "And now you expose the fallacy of my argument." He smiled almost tenderly at his nephew. "A mind such as yours would be wasted outside the Order, Rhys." As he spoke there came a knock at the door. Sewell half-rose to answer it, and then winced. "Rhys ... would you answer that? And ask them to be quiet, please. Lord Hardy should have his sleep out." "Certainly," Rhys replied, noticing his uncle in pain. Probably nothing more than his joints--an ongoing problem with many older people--but regardless Rhys gripped Sewell's shoulder in passing on the way to the door, wondering if the gods would so enlighten him with more information. And he saw the old man's stiffness, the reddened areas that betokened the aging, aching joints. Painful, but nothing more serious at the moment. Rhys walked across the room and answered the door. It was one of the guards. He looked pleased to see Rhys. "If you please, Maester," he said in a low voice, "Master Godwyn requests you come to the Great Hall to bear witness in the trial." "Thank you. I'll be along presently," Rhys promised, then shut the door softly and walked back to his uncle. "My presence is requested at the trial, Uncle," Rhys explained. "I think you should be there too," he continued, thinking of what Syndra was going to say and how it would involve his uncle's records. Sewell nodded, rising stiffly. "I shall come then," he agreed. "Bessica, if Lord Hardy awakens, or his condition changes, send for me at once." Then he gave a nod to Rhys, and prepared to go with him, moving with his usual imperious stride - although perhaps only he and Rhys knew the effort that cost him. "The trial is to be held in the Great Hall," Rhys told Sewell. He walked beside him and slightly behind, keeping a clinical yet surreptitious eye on his uncle's ease of movement for future reference. |
